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(09/19/88) 100 Killed in Rangoon



The Associated Press

                      September  19, 1988, Monday, AM cycle



HEADLINE: 100 Reportedly Killed in Capital As Troops Fire On Demonstrators


DATELINE: RANGOON, Burma


   Soldiers loyal to the new military government opened fire on thousands of
demonstrators who surged into the streets Monday to protest a military coup.
About 100 people were reported killed in Rangoon. 
   Demonstrations also broke out it other cities, including Mandalay. Witnesses 
and other reports said a total of about 150 people, including 17 soldiers, had
died in the violence that swept Burma after Sunday's coup.

   The military placed the death toll at 23 Monday, but gave no details.

   Military commander  Saw Maung  engineered the newest change in power in Burma
by overthrowing civilian President Maung Maung.

   Undaunted opposition leaders vowed that students, Buddhist monks and striking
civil servants would continue to demonstrate for democracy.

   Maung Maung's whereabouts remain unknown.

   A Western diplomat familiar with Burma said from Bangkok, Thailand, that
"We're into possibly one of the final acts now ... a naked confrontation with
the army. ... Either the students win or the army wins."

   The soldiers were trying to enforce a ban on public gatherings imposed
immediately after the coup by  Saw Maung,  the defense minister before the coup 
and a right-hand man of former President Sein Lwin. Sein Lwin resigned Aug. 12
after riots in which hundreds of protesters reportedly died. 
   Protesters blame the country's sole legal party, the ruling Burma Socialist
Program Party, for 26 years of repression and economic ruin. Other analysts
believe the military may have acted to simply assert its traditional authority. 

   Reports indicated soldiers shot at mostly unarmed protesters near the main
government administrative building, the U.S. Embassy, Sule Pagoda and Rangoon
General Hospital. An Asian diplomat said 67 people were admitted Monday at
Rangoon General Hospital.

   Witnesses said corpses were taken away by military trucks while residents
dragged some of the dead and wounded into their houses or put them in
three-wheeled taxis to be taken to hospitals.

   In Washington, the Reagan administration said it was reviewing assistance
programs to Burma that total $$14 million annually to determine whether aid
should be cut off in light of the coup and violence.

   "The United States urges Burmese military authorities immediately to cease
shooting at demonstrators and calls upon those demonstrating to refrain from
provocative actions," White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said. 
   Military spokesman Kyaw Sann said the clashes began Sunday night when "the
violent mob attacked security forces with catapaults and jinglees (metal darts) 
and the troops had to disperse the mob by shooting in many parts of the town."

   Kyaw Sann said crowds Monday raided two police stations, stealing rifles,
pistols and ammunition. There were reports protesters, some carrying swords,
spears and crossbows, were taking the weapons of fallen soldiers.

   Troops used cranes and forklifts to clear roadblocks demonstrators had
erected. Witnesses said one boy was killed and six people were wounded when
troops fired on youths trying to remove a tree that had been used as a barrier. 

   "Many students are being mowed down. Can't anything be done?" a reporter said
by telephone from the scene of one confrontation before begining to cry.

   Witnesses said they also saw two monks fall to the ground after being hit by 
bullets near Sule Pagoda.

   In the past month, strikes, demonstrations, looting and lawlessness have
paralyzed the economy and pushed the nation to the verge of anarchy.  Saw Maung 
in a statement to Radio Rangoon vowed to restore order and to "hold general
elections under a multiparty system" at an unspecified later date. 
   Opposition leaders said on Monday they would "continue our struggle for
democracy by various means until the goal is achieved." A joint statement was
issued by former military officers Aung Gyi and Tin Oo and Aung San Suu Kyi, the
daughter of the late independence hero Aung San.

   Troops at one point fired Monday on a crowd outside the U.S. Embassy in
Rangoon, said the embassy's public affairs officer, John Fredenburg.

   "It wasn't fighting between the troops and the demonstrators - it was really 
more troops firing on the demonstrators," Fredenburg told Associated Press
Radio.

   "There was a small group of young people outside the embassy, not
demonstrating, but waiting outside the embassy. And further down the street
there was a group of people marching. ...

   "They were as far as we could tell unarmed and behaving in a peaceful manner.
The troops opened fire on that group of demonstrators and then opened fire on
the small group of a hundred or so people that were standing in front of the
embassy at the same time. 
   "The procession of demonstrators may have numbered one to two thousand. "When
the firing died down and the ambulance came to pick up the casualties, there
were two people who appeared to have been killed and there was one wounded still
lying in front of the embassy - a young man who was shot in the upper body and
was quite bloody."

   Maung Maung on Aug. 19 became the nation's first civilian leader since the
1962 military coup by strongman Ne Win. Ne Win resigned in July after protests
against his repressive rule.